My Parents' Scars
by EmMcD Black
Summary: Rose Weasley has always seen her Mum's scars.... she sits her Mum down for a talk. Prompt from filledecriture.


Rose Weasley has always seen her mum's scars, but has never had the nerve to ask what they're from. She sees Uncle Harry's scar, which seems to embarrass him even though it's really cool, and Dad's scars, which he always says come from brains. And doesn't really understand. Her uncle George is missing an ear, and Uncle Bill always says that his face looks like it's gone through a meat grinder. But why is mum scarred? Mums are supposed to be invincible. Not have nightmares. Not always wear long sleeves.

Rose Weasley does what she always does when she's confused. She sits her mum down for a talk.

_Rose_

Rose looked at her Mum's scars every chance she got, trying to figure them out. Mum rarely wore short sleeves and she rarely went anywhere without the conveniently placed locket Ron had given her that Rose knew hid a cut on her neck. When Rose was little and Mum would give her a bath, Rose would be absolutely focused on getting glimpses of the scars. But Rose was older now. She was nearly Hogwarts age. And whenever the Cousins were home for the summer hols, they usually went on ski trips, as though they hadn't had enough winter weather already. Rose was dying to know where those scars had come from, and she wasn't sure her Mum would be as eager to share. Nonetheless, she had to try, and try she did.

Rose strategically planned the time and place of the asking. She always helped Mum grocery shop, so she knew if she was the only one who went along, they would have the whole car ride to the supermarket to talk alone. Rose woke up that morning and went into Hugo's room before Mum and Dad woke up. Hugo was already awake, playing with his trains. One was a miniature of the Hogwarts Express, with real compartments and a candy trolley.

"Hey, Hugo?" Rose said when she sat down across from her brother. Hugo didn't respond. Sometimes he didn't… it was part of the Autism. He also didn't like noise, which was why Mum and Dad had disenchanted his trains so that they didn't make the real noises like they were supposed to. Usually, though, Hugo paid special attention to Rose, Lily, and Teddy.

"Hugo…" Rose said again, hoping he wasn't in one of his moods. Hugo looked up at her silently, then back at his trains.

"Hug, I need a favor. I have to ask Mum something, in private, and I need you to get Dad to stay home with you today when we go grocery shopping, okay? Could you pretend to be sick or something, and say you want Dad?" Rose asked, and Hugo looked up at her, but only for a moment, before he focused his attention on one of her hands, which was resting on his favorite blue train, a Muggle one with a smiling face on the front. He picked up her hand and set it on her lap, pulling the train closer to him and putting a pink one near her instead, and then answered her.

"Daddy away." Hugo said, and Rose raised her eyebrows. Dad was an Auror, and sometimes he went away on a mission without saying goodbye. It was hard for Hugo, and especially for Mum. Rose tried to help out a lot with Hugo when Dad was away, because she knew it put a lot of strain on Mum.

"Really? Do you know when he left?" Rose asked, and Hugo shook his head.

"Last night…couldn't sleep…heard yelling…and Daddy leave." Hugo muttered, and Rose frowned.

"Thanks, Hug." Rose said before she left, putting the pink train back in Hugo's train box. He liked his trains to be neat.

Rose walked down the hall to her Mum's room. Hermione was getting dressed, and didn't see her daughter come in.

"Mum?" Rose said, plopping down on the bed, which was made. Mum never made the bed, unless she was upset. Hermione flinched when she heard Rose.

"Hey, sweetie. What's up?" She asked, fumbling to put in the earrings Grandmum had given her before she died. Rose wondered why she wasn't wearing the diamonds Dad had given her last month for their anniversary.

"Did you and Dad have a row?" Rose blurted out, and Hermione frowned in the mirror above her dresser, her eyes focused on her daughter's reflection.

"No. Why do you ask?" Hermione said indifferently.

"I was just talking to Hugo, and he said that he couldn't sleep last night, and heard yelling, then Dad left. And it's Sunday, and Dad isn't here… so I thought you might have an explanation for that." Rose said harshly.

"Yes, your father and I had a fight." Hermione sighed reluctantly.

"What about?" Rose asked.

"He doesn't think it's necessary to place Hugo in a Muggle school for children… children with special needs… instead of Hogwarts. I do." Hermione explained through gritted teeth.

"Well he's right, you know. Hugo will be fine at Hogwarts. He'll have all the Cousins, me, and Lily. Professor McGonnagal is the best headmistress we could hope for, and he knows about four of the teachers already. It's not fair to hold him back, Mum." Rose snapped, and Hermione stared at her daughter.

"You don't know what you're talking about. You'll understand when you're older." Hermione shook her head, and Rose narrowed her eyes.

"Will I? Is that what you told Dad?" She asked, and Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it.

They stood for a moment, staring at each other, until Hermione turned back to her dresser.

"Rose, could you go make your brother some frozen waffles? I'll be down in a moment." Hermione said stiffly, fumbling with her jewelry.

Rose was satisfied to hear her mother crying as she left to go to the kitchen.

Rose and Hugo were finished eating by the time their mother had come down, and Rose was now trying to keep Hugo entertained by magicking the waffles into the shapes of trains with the little magic she was able to control, but Hugo wasn't particularly interested. He just sat quietly and let her play with the food. Mum went to the phone and dialed a few numbers. Hugo mumbled "Uncle Harry," under his breath, and Rose smiled. She loved that he could recognize their family's telephone numbers just by the sounds they made.

"Hey, Gin? Could you take Hugo for a while today? I need to grocery shop, and I just can't deal with him in a supermarket right now. Uh huh. Yeah. Around noon? Great. What do you need? No, no, it's no problem at all. Milk. Coffee. Eggs. Bananas. Okay. Alright, thanks Gin. Bye." Hermione hung up the phone and summoned a notepad. She jotted down the things she needed to get for Aunt Ginny, and then sat down across from Hugo.

"Hey, Hug, how would you like to go to Aunt Ginny's today? Teddy will be there," Hermione said, and Hugo looked at her for a moment, then blinked, and went back to watching Rose make the waffles zoom around like a train, "Could you stop that?" Hermione snapped at her daughter, "You shouldn't play with your food," She said, and then she vanished the waffles. Hugo started to kick the table impatiently.

"He liked it," Rose said quietly, putting a hand on Hugo's leg to calm him. He still scowled at the wood finish of the table.

Hermione ignored her, "I need your laundry, and Hugo's." She said, "And I would like you to tidy up your room."

"He can get his own laundry, Mum, he's not a cripple," Rose said angrily, "And his room is just as dirty as mine."

"Stop suggesting I'm playing favorites! I'll tell you what I want you to do, and you won't worry about what I tell your brother to do!" Hermione said angrily, "Now go to your room!"

"I know why you treat him like that, Mum! You hate that he's not perfect! You hate that he's not normal, Like Al and James! I see you at Sunday dinner, Mum, watching him play with them! Wishing that you could take home one of them instead of your son, who's not how you wanted him to be! But he's only as abnormal as you make him to be, Mom! He just wants to please you! All he wants is to be a regular kid, like you want him to be! But you won't let him!" Rose yelled, and Hermione looked taken aback. When did Rose get so smart? When did she mature so much? It was only a month until she left for Hogwarts… how did her baby grow up so fast?

"Both of you. Go get your laundry and clean your rooms," Hermione said calmly, admitting defeat. Rose grabbed her brother's hand and started leading him away from the kitchen, just as Mum started to make another call.

"Daddy." Hugo muttered.

Rose perked up, and when they reached the foot of the stairs, Rose thought for a moment before asking him to go get a teacup from her room for her. He eagerly ran to complete the task, and was back in a flash with a dirty teacup that had been sitting on her bedside table for a while now.

"Thanks, Hug." Rose whispered, then headed back towards the kitchen, stopping outside the door and snaking an invisible extendable ear under the door.

"Ron? Can you come home? Please…" Mum was crying, "Because. Rose… she's leaving for Hogwarts in a month, and if you don't come back… I can't handle Hugo on my own. I need your help… he doesn't like me, Ron," Hermione's voice cracked, and there was a pause, "No, really, he doesn't. And… Ron, you and Rose are right. Hugo doesn't need special treatment. He wants to be a regular kid." There was another pause, "I want him to be, too… Oh Ron… I love you, too" There was a click, and Rose tugged on the extendable ear. It went back to its regular fleshy color and rolled itself up neatly. She stuck it in her pocket, and crashed into Mum on her way into the kitchen. Hermione looked startled when she saw Rose, and Rose held up the teacup wordlessly. Hermione nodded, and headed past her daughter to the second level of the house.

Rose dumped the teacup in the sink and bounded upstairs.

******

The day wasn't going as Rose had planned. Usually she and Mum got along far better than they had that morning, but some days were just bad ones. Like today. Which didn't really work into Rose's plans, because this might be the only chance she had to ask Mum before she went to school. The atmosphere in the car on the way to the supermarket was tense, and unusually silent. Rose debated for a while on whether to ask or to let it drop.

If she asked, Mum could get even more upset than she already was. And while Rose wasn't particularly pleased with Mum at the moment, she knew she had won, and she didn't want to shove that in Mum's face even more. Not to mention, Mum had clearly had enough emotional turmoil for the day. She looked downright exhausted.

On the other side of things, Rose was dying to know. And she knew this might be her only chance. There was also the fact that whenever Rose was upset about something, Mum said that talking would help her work out her feelings. Maybe Mum needed to talk. Maybe she had never talked to anyone about it, and if Rose asked, Mum would spill her guts, and their relationship would strengthen, and she wouldn't go to school feeling like she had lost the chance to get to know her mother.

Rose weighed these ideas for a while, and finally decided that asking was the way to go.

"Mum?" Rose said, and Hermione hummed an acknowledgement, "What are your scars from?"

Hermione looked shocked. She unwittingly put a hand to her neck, where her locket covered the scar she would never forget about.

"What scars?" Was her automatic response, the one she had planned years ago, if her children ever asked her that question…

_Hermione, exhausted, spent the first night in Bill and Fleur's room. She was reluctant to put them out, but they insisted. When she got into the room, she couldn't sleep. She was thoroughly worn out, but every time she closed her eyes she felt Bellatrix's tight grasp on her arms, the cold dagger at her throat. So she turned on the light in the room, and walked to the mirror Fleur had hung beside the door. Hermione reached up to her neck, and unbuttoned her robes. They fell loosely around her shoulders, and the low V neck in her jumper revealed what she had been trying so hard to hide. _

_ Just at the nape of her neck was a deep cut, crusted over with blood. The blood had dripped down her neck while they were escaping, and had left slim red stains on her skin, traveling down and merging together. Hermione remembered reading about this phenomenon fourth year, when Mad Eye had them researching Unforgivables. Blood was magnetized to the place where an Unforgivable had left its mark. Hermione unbuttoned her jumper, threw it to the ground, and yanked off her undershirt. Just where her bra ended, just above her heart, was a small, round wound that strongly resembled a cigarette wound. All the dried blood from her cut had gathered in a ring around it, but still there were lines leading elsewhere. Hermione stripped naked, the chill air causing goosebumps to rise on her skin. She followed the lines around the burn to various other locations… her arms, her legs, her stomach. Some were small, some were large, the biggest was the one near her heart. Hermione felt tears welling in her eyes, as she gazed at these small marks. These marked her as a failure. They marked her as weak. _

_ And she knew she would never allow weakness into her body again. _

Hermione reviewed in her head the events of that day, and of the previous weeks. She and Ron had been fighting a lot, and more so than just their usual squabbles. Because they had a lot more to fight about than when they were first married. It wasn't just about who should do the dishes or who should vacuum or who left what out where. They were fighting about much larger things. Where to send their autistic child to school. Where to put him when he came of age. How to treat him, how to speak to him, and whether or not their poor daughter would collapse under the strain of caring for her brother or if she would fade away while her parents did.

Hermione looked at her daughter, and she knew that she could tell Rose why she acted the way she did, but that her daughter would never truly understand. That was why she would never tell Ron, or Harry, or Ginny, either. She would never tell them that she stayed awake at night blaming herself for her son's defects, or that, even though she hated herself for it, she hated that she had produced something less than perfect. Hermione knew that she _could_ tell her friends and family these things, but, even if she did, they would never truly understand. So Hermione answered her daughter the only way she could.

"There was a woman in the war who got a hold of your Uncle Harry, your father, and I, and tortured me because… because I was a mudblood. We escaped, but dark curses leave a mark." Hermione said, careful not to reveal too much information about the war... if it got back to Harry…

Rose nodded, sensing her mother wasn't giving her the whole story, and stared out the window, anger boiling in her stomach…


End file.
